Stax Records Docuseries Set At HBO From Jamila Wignot & Ezra Edelman
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Stax Records, the label responsible for hits such as Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay and Sam & Dave’s Soul Man, is getting the docuseries treatment.HBO is behind a new multi-part series telling the story of the fabled Memphis-based label.Jamila Wignot, who directed Ailey, a portrait of the legendary choreographer Alvin Ailey and has worked on HBO’s Axios, is directing with OJ: Made In America director Ezra Edelman and producer Caroline Waterlow exec producing.
Nigel Sinclair and Nicholas Ferrall of White Horse Pictures, the company behind Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan doc are also EPs.The series will explore the rise and fall of the label, which was founded in 1957 by Jim Stewart.
Stewart, a country music fan, and his sister Estelle Axton, who mortgaged her house to afford recording equipment, released Fool in Love by the Veltones under its original name Satellite Records.
They then took over an old movie theater in Memphis with plans to turn it into a recording studio and discovering a coterie of R&B acts.They then released Rufus & Carla’s Cause I Love You before changing its name to Stax and signing a distribution deal with Atlantic Records.It went on to release records by Booker T. & the M.G.’s – Booker T was originally a session musician for the label – Redding, who was officially on Stax’s sister label Volt, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and Sam & Dave.
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